


#flymeto Manchester, then freeze time

by yikesola



Series: Commissions [1]
Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: 2009, Early Days, M/M, parental woes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-29
Updated: 2019-08-29
Packaged: 2020-09-28 22:28:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,210
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20433497
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yikesola/pseuds/yikesola
Summary: Dan and his father just had a fight about him going up to Manchester again this weekend and he fucking hates that he has to choke downwhyit’s so important for him to go so often.A fic about wind and shouting.





	#flymeto Manchester, then freeze time

**Author's Note:**

> This was a commissioned piece for [oriharakaoru](http://oriharakaoru.tumblr.com/) 💞

The chilling November wind is hitting Dan’s bedroom window with all its might, but Dan himself is warm with anger. He wants to make a ruckus like the wind, to blow so powerfully that the bins lined along the streets fall over. He wants to be the reason the glass bottles rattle along the street as they’re set loose because the wind doesn’t give a fuck, it just blows. Maybe then he’d be as destructive as his father thinks he is; maybe then he’d deserve the nasty looks thrown his way just for taking up space in his own freaking home. Maybe then his father would pay attention to the messes he’s the cause of. 

He can hear his nan’s voice somewhere through the clutter of his brain. “Are you being unfair? Your father works hard,Bear.” And he knows his nan just wants there to be peace, knows her habit of tut-tutting him isn’t meant to feel as awful as it does, knows she doesn’t really care about who is right and who is wrong. But Dan’s pretty sure he isn’t being unfair. He’s pretty sure his dad’s an ass and that’s all there is to it. 

Not all the time, but definitely this time. 

Because he and his father just had a fight about him going up to Manchester again this weekend and he fucking hates that he has to choke down _why_ it’s so important for him to go so often. 

Saying, “I’m helping friends film YouTube stuff,” had no effect. Saying, “It’s been two goddamn days since I made out with Phil Lester and I’d like to rectify that, thank you very much,” would surely have an effect, but a devastating one. There’s no way in hell he’s actually going to find out just how devastating. His dad isn’t owed that information. His dad doesn’t get to make Dan feel like shit the last several years and manage to have any right to know him. He knows enough. He knows all Dan is willing to tell him. 

Dan grabs a pillow and yells into it, and it doesn’t do as much as he’d like to actually get rid of the tension running through him. But it does something. It shifts his energy. He’s suddenly tired through and through. He flops down onto his bed and shoots out an emo tweet: “_just had a biblical-scale argument with the father. pah, ill find sanctuary on the internet_”

Then he feels a little too raw. A little too seen. A little too caught out. 

“_i wish you could emo tweet without anyone being able to read it_” he says, even if it would be more to the point if he just deleted the emo tweet so no one _would_ be able to read it. He’s feeling like really leaning into the bundle of contradictions that make him up tonight. 

Phil texts him twelve minutes later. “_How biblical?_” 

“_he’d smite my ass if he could_” Dan texts back. 

“_Nooo :(( i like your ass!_”

Dan wants to revel in the compliment, wants to hold it close and precious, but he’s too put out. “_it’s flat as hell_” he argues. 

“_lots of religious imagery for two bros who aren’t religious_” 

“_or bros_” He and Phil might be dancing around precisely what they are just now, but bros sure ain’t it. 

There’s a minute or two before Phil sends another text, a minute or two where Dan wonders if he should open his window and let some of that angry wind inside. 

When Phil does text back, he’s taken it upon himself to change the subject. “_We should stop by the apple store again when you’re up this weekend :3 Stephen too!_” Dan doesn’t care what they do in Manchester, so long as he’s there which means he’s far away from home and his family and everything that’s causing this slowly diluting anger that’s still taking up more space in his veins than blood. And close enough to see Phil’s freckles which he can’t over Skype’s grainy screen. 

He hears his dad’s voice carrying up the stairs from down below. Seems Dan isn’t the only one who has been stewing in his anger since their fight. The difference is that Dan has spent the time in his room trying to quiet his rage by thinking up stupid metaphors about wind and emo tweeting and talking to Phil, while his father has apparently been waiting for someone, anyone, to stumble into the lounge and get his second round of shouts. That’s not fair. Nothing about this is fucking fair. 

He doesn’t hear a second voice. He doesn’t know if his father’s letting out his frustrations on his mum or on Adrian but either option, it continues to occur to Dan, is just profoundly unfair. 

Dan can’t hear what’s actually being said. Just the tone, just the anger. He hates it— he hates it so fucking much. He calls Phil because texting isn’t doing enough and he doesn’t want to leave his bed even for long enough to grab his laptop. Phil picks up immediately. “I hate being here,” Dan opens with. “I just want it to be the weekend already.” 

“I want you here too,” Phil says. He sounds a little nervous about the tears clearly hiding in the back of Dan’s tone. Dan’s trying to choke them down for now. 

“Your family never yells,” Dan pouts. 

“Of course they do,” Phil says. “Every family yells sometimes.” 

“Not like mine.” 

Phil doesn’t argue that. 

Dan’s jumbled emotions are sitting heavy in his stomach. Phil’s family wasn’t home when he went up north in October. There’s every possibility that when he meets them this weekend they’ll be as annoyed by him as his own father is. That they’ll think he’s just in the way. That they’ll begrudge how much of his son’s attention he’s been taking. He hates that idea; he wants Phil’s family to like him so badly it makes his ribs ache to think they might not. 

“My dad will yell if you get a triple word score in Scrabble before he can. Always does. He doesn’t mean it but it’s definitely a yell,” Phil says, some laughter in his voice. 

“Guess not all types of yelling is bad,” Dan says. 

“No, like when you yell at _Guitar Hero_,” Phil says, “that’s not bad.” 

“Bad on your hearing.” 

“My hearing’s bad enough already, yell all you like, Danny.” 

Dan’s smile at the nickname is a different kind of warm than the anger. He doesn’t think anyone but Phil could make him feel this kind of warmth. No one has before. Warm, and happy, and listened to. Because Phil isn't out here trying to fix every problem Dan whines to him about. He's just listening. And Dan's ridiculously grateful for that. “Your hearing’s bad cuz you’re an old man,” Dan teases. 

“Huh?” Phil asks exaggeratedly. They dissolve into giggles. Dan can’t hear his father’s voice anymore. He must’ve stopped yelling, or left. It doesn’t matter. He’s got Phil in his ear and the wind is something more like a breeze now, and he’ll be in Manchester in just a few days— it’s so far north that not even his dad’s worst shouts can carry.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading— come say hi on [tumblr](http://yikesola.tumblr.com/post/187341616689/flymeto-manchester-then-freeze-time) !


End file.
